Investigating Employee Digital Stress

The continually soaring mobile and social media use worldwide, across private and work lives, causes users to feel digitally stressed, which might undermine important behavioral outcomes. Hall et al. (2021) have established a digital stress scale (DSS), developed among U.S. adolescents and young adults; the current study offers a cross-cultural test of the scale and proposes a shortened version, by almost 60%. Social media use tends to blur work and nonwork spheres, and psychometric scales need to be cross-culturally valid, so the present study tests perceived digital stress among employees from three countries. The well-established validation procedures and samples from Germany, Italy, and Japan affirm the reliability, validity, and cross-national applicability of a 10-item short DSS. The extended application also reveals the impact of perceived digital stress on three sets of employee outcomes. In turn, this research offers implications for both research and practice.